


A Quiet Confrontation

by BeStillMySlashyHeart



Series: AK ficlets [13]
Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-10 13:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19504540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeStillMySlashyHeart/pseuds/BeStillMySlashyHeart
Summary: Deran and Adrian have it out over the secrets Adrian's been keeping





	A Quiet Confrontation

**Author's Note:**

> written between 4x02 and 4x03

Deran stubbed out the cigarette as the front door opened quietly behind him. He didn’t turn around as Adrian moved about the kitchen and disappeared into the hallway to put his stuff away. He thought about following, about welcoming him home as he usually did but instead he stayed where he was, soaking in the sounds of Adrian moving about their house.

He was terrified that this would be the last time he ever heard it.

“Deran?” He heard Adrian call softly from the other room. He didn’t answer.

“Deran?” Adrian’s voice was louder now as he came back into the kitchen. Deran heard him pause and assumed he was looking around. It wasn’t that big of a house and the Scout was outside so Adrian knew he was here. Soft footsteps alerted him that Adrian was coming close.

“Hey,” he said softly as he rounded the couch and saw Deran slumped into it. “I called your name.”

Deran looked at him, really looked. Adrian used to come home from competitions jazzed up, still riding the high of competing or even winning, but now-

Now Adrian came home with bags under his eyes and the light missing. Deran wasn’t sure where things had gone wrong but he knew that they had. Somewhere things had gotten terrible and he didn’t know when. Or how. Or why.

Adrian was an awful liar but it had never mattered before because he’d never lied to Deran. He’d never needed to. Deran was always the one who had secrets to keep.

Adrian pushed his hair out of his face and settled next to him. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Deran didn’t say anything, enjoying the concern in his boyfriend’s voice.

“You’re starting to scare me,” Adrian warned. “Is it Craig? Pope?”

Deran shook his head. “Are you seeing someone else?” Adrian’s hand stopped. “Or doing drugs?”

“Why-why would you think that, Deran?” Adrian asked, scooting back a bit. Deran hated that new inch of space. It reeked of guilt.

“Something’s going on with you. You’re lying all of the time and making shitty excuses to not be around and hiding things.” Deran didn’t raise his voice. He couldn’t. “I’ve tried to ask what was wrong but you keep brushing me off so I thought maybe I’m the problem. We never actually said we were exclusive so maybe-”

“No! God, Deran, no. There’s no one else.” Adrian refuted. Deran searched his eyes before nodding.

“Then is it drugs?” He asked. “You’ve been hanging out with Jack again and I know you hate the guy. The only reason anyone hangs out with him is for his drugs, so-”

Adrian let out a heavy breath and fell back against the couch.

“You’ve been losing, man. You’re better than this crap you’ve been doing out there and you know it.” Deran ran a hand through his hair. “I just can’t think of anything else that would make you do lose like that unless you were high or stoned or-”

“I’m losing on purpose,” Adrian admitted quietly. Deran turned to look at him but Adrian wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Why?” 

Adrian shrugged.

“That’s not a fucking answer.” 

Adrian rolled his head to the side to look at him. “I’m dealing with it.”

“That’s still not an answer,” Deran wanted to yell but he kept his voice low. Anger had never gotten him anywhere with Adrian. Once upon a time, Adrian might have pushed back but ever since- Adrian doesn’t fight him anymore. If Deran gets too angry or loud or violent, he just leaves. And Deran knows if it happens too many times Adrian won’t come back. So he keeps it in check. No matter how much he wants to explode. “What is going on?” His voice was plaintive but he didn’t care. He needed answers.

Adrian stood up. “I’m not seeing anyone else and I’m not on drugs. I had a problem but now I’m handling it.” His voice faded as he walked into the kitchen.

Deran pushed himself up and followed. “What problem?”

Adrian shrugged as he pulled a bottle of beer out of the fridge. “A problem.”

Deran took a deep breath. “Something to do with Jack? Are you dealing?”

“No,” Adrian answered as he searched for the opener. Deran rolled his eyes and grabbed the magnetic one off of the fridge and handed it to him. Adrian grunted in thanks as he popped the top off and took a sip. 

Deran sighed heavily as he pressed his back against the counter and looked at Adrian. Adrian avoided his gaze, staring out the back window at the ocean instead.

“Give me something, please,” Deran pleaded softly. “The last couple of weeks, hell the last couple of months, you’ve been scaring me, Adrian. Something’s wrong and you won’t let me help.”

“Help?” Adrian asked with a slight laugh. It wasn’t a pretty sound. “What? Are you going to throw money at it until it goes away?”

Deran’s brow furrowed. “Is this about the money thing?”

Adrian put his bottle down and braced himself against the counter as he shook his head, still not looking at Deran. “What do you mean by money thing?”

Deran shrugged even though Adrian couldn’t see him. “You don’t like me giving you money?”

Adrian straightened up and turned around. “You mean I didn’t like it when you tossed a stack of bills at me? I wonder why.”

Deran shrugged again. “I don’t get it. The tour can get expensive. I figured you could use the cash.”

Adrian laughed bitterly. “Do you know what that feels like, Deran? When you throw money at me? Especially after sex? It feels cheap. Like I’m your whore or something. You keep me around because you feel like it and then you pay me to keep coming back.”

Deran went rigid. “You’re not a whore.”

“I know that,” Adrian told him. “But sometimes I think you forget. You think money is the answer to everything, like it’s the only thing that matters.”

“You matter,” Deran admitted before he could stop himself. Adrian’s features softened and he smiled sadly. 

“You matter to me too, Deran. But you’re not the only thing that matters to me.”

Deran grabbed at his hair in frustration. “I feel like we’re talking in circles. I still don’t know what’s going on with you.”

Adrian took a long pull of his beer, his eyes never leaving Deran’s. Deran waited.

“Okay.”

Deran raised an eyebrow. “Okay? Okay what?”

“Okay, I’ll tell you what’s going on. But you have to let me finish before you say anything.”

“Okay,” Deran agreed readily. He settled back against the counter and braced his arms against the edge. 

Adrian finished off the beer and tossed it in the trashcan, not bothering to go out to the recycling.

“There was never a French board sponsor. I needed money and I didn’t want to ask you for any more.” Deran opened his mouth but promptly shut it at Adrian’s glare. “I get really uncomfortable sometimes the way you throw around money like it’s nothing. I never had much growing up so the idea of owing you fifty grand kind of makes my skin crawl. And that’s not even bringing up this house you bought for us without ever really asking me if I wanted to live with you or how this was going to go. I could never afford a place like this and I still can’t really let myself be at home here knowing it’s all yours and I’m just here because you let me.”

Deran opened his mouth to object despite what he’d agreed but Adrian put his hand over his mouth and glared at him again. Deran glared back but shut up.

“I needed to fund my surfing on my own so I found another source of income. Jack’s suppliers are branching out and they needed someone to smuggle the drugs out of the country so I’ve been serving as a mule and taking their drugs with me when I go out on tour. They fill surfing equipment and I just pack it along with my regular gear. The first two trips went fine. On the third they packed the board too heavy and I got pulled in by the DEA at the airport.”

Deran’s entire body tense at the mention of feds. Adrian looked away and stepped back.

“They offered me a deal. I help them get Jack and his suppliers and I don’t go to prison for 25 years.” Adrian took a deep breath and visibly steeled himself. “Before I went to Tokyo, I met with the DEA agent at the beach and he saw you and wanted to know who you were. I told him your name and that you were my roommate. I tried to play it off as much as I could but there’s a chance he might start asking me for information on your family. That’s why I’ve been steering clear of any talk about your jobs lately. I don’t want to have anything I can tell them.” He cleared his throat and Deran willed his heart to keep beating. This was like his worst fear come to life. “Anyway I’ve been throwing competitions hoping that the drug dealers will stop giving me runs and then I’ll be useless to the DEA. I’m giving them all I can right now but it’s not much.”

Deran sucked in a few harsh breaths. Adrian pressed himself against the opposite counter and looked at him uneasily.

“Are you done?” He asked when Adrian didn’t continue. Adrian just nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

Adrian raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t I tell you that I’ve becoming a federal informant?” He scoffed. “I can’t imagine why I thought that might be something you wouldn’t be okay with.”

Deran fisted his hair in frustration. “That’s not- are you telling them about me? About my family?”

Adrian shook his head. “No I told you, your name only recently came up because he saw us together at the beach. I’ve been trying to keep you and your family out of it entirely.”

“Then I don’t care!” Deran finally raised his voice and Adrian flinched. He took a deep breath. “Jesus, Adrian, why didn’t you just come to me from the start? If you wanted money on your own we could’ve come up with something better than becoming a drug mule.”

“Because I don’t need or want you to be my savior Deran,” Adrian answered coolly. “I had a problem and I found a solution. Yeah, I can fully admit that it was a bad solution but it was _mine_.”

“But I want to help you,” Deran told him. “Why is that a bad thing?”

“Because there’s no give and take with you. You want to help me and take care of me and give me money and a house and all of that is great but you never let me do that for you. This isn’t an equal partnership, Deran,” Adrian said, slightly exasperated. “I needed to take care of my own problems and not rely on you for everything.”

Deran opened his mouth and closed it again. “Do you- I thought- I thought this was going well.”

“It _is_.” Adrian promised. “It’s so much better than I ever let myself hope for, honestly. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. We still have our issues.” Deran nodded slowly and looked away. Adrian sighed and pushed off of the counter and stepped into Deran’s space. “We just have to talk more, okay? And listen more too.”

Deran nodded again. “And resolve your little DEA problem.”

Adrian sighed and dropped his hands from where they’d been playing with Deran’s hair. “Yeah, that too.”

“Throwing the competitions isn’t going to help you.”

“I know. I’m just sick of lying.” Adrian smiled slightly. “I know I’m terrible at it and it’s been driving a wedge between us.”

“You need to give the feds what they want.”

“What they want is the drug cartel.” Adrian told him. “And I can’t do that.”

Deran pursed his lips. “No. But Jack probably knows enough.”

Adrian looked at him. “And how would you like me to get that information out of Jack?”

Deran shrugged. “You won’t. Jack will come with you to meet with the DEA and sing like a bird.”

Adrian raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And why is he going to do that?”

“Because if he doesn’t, he’s going to find it very hard to live or work in Oceanside ever again. And that’s if we let him live.”

Adrian pushed a hand to the center of his chest and pressed hard, a glare glinting in his eyes. “You’re not killing him. You’re not killing anyone for me, ever.”

“If you want to fix this, you’re going to have to do things you’re not comfortable with,” Deran promised him.

“I don’t care. If it comes down to that, I’ll go to jail for the smuggling. But you’re not going to kill anyone for me, Deran.” 

“Fine,” Deran agreed after a beat. He could tell Adrian was serious. “So we’ll just have to make it impossible for him to keep working in Oceanside. Or more accurately, his suppliers. And make sure his suppliers know that Jack is the reason their clientele has dried up.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Should make him more agreeable to your cause.”

Adrian stared at him. “This is part of that savior thing I didn’t want you doing.” His voice was odd. Almost like- no.

“If the alternative is jail or worse-”

“Yeah I know,” Adrian cut him off. “And I’m willing to make an exception.” He licked his lips.

Deran stared at him, sensing the sudden mood shift. “Really?” He arched an eyebrow. “Right now?”

Adrian shrugged. “Apparently. Who knew listening to you plan to coerce our high school friend into turning rat on a drug cartel to save my ass would turn me on?”

Deran huffed a laugh but Adrian cut him off with a hard kiss. Deran responded eagerly, both of them reaching up to tear at clothing.

“You should listen in when we plan our jobs from now,” Deran told him later when they were collapsed against each other and the counter. “Especially if this is my reward for sitting through some of those family meetings.”

Adrian laughed. “Maybe after we get this DEA shit sorted out.”


End file.
